by Left with the Dead is a novella set that directly follows the events of The Gathering Dead. It’s not a direct sequel, mind you. Instead, it follows the character of David Gatrell after he is stranded in the middle of New York, and surrounded by the dead. The actual sequel, The Rising Horde, was published earlier this year.
One thing that I really, really liked about this story was that it was efficient. A novella of about one hundred pages, it doesn’t have a lot of room to tell you a long, winding story. So instead of a lot of setup, boring description, and meaningless sideplots, we’re thrown right into the thick of the action, which doesn’t really let up until the book’s final page. It’s fast paced, action packed, and scary in interesting ways.
Despite being a short, quick read, Left with the Dead packs in the suspense. Our protagonist starts off surrounded by zombies in a giant city, short on ammo, and without any real resources other than what’s on his back. Things don’t really improve for him from there. Instead, they just get tougher. Not only does he have to try to extricate himself, he also becomes responsible for two other people: a mother and her severely autistic seven year-old son.
That young boy is what really made Left with the Dead work for me. It takes our über-masculine special forces soldier, and humanizes him in ways most books like this could only dream of. He also makes for some interesting challenges throughout the narrative. Not only must the boy be protected, he must also be kept occupied and calm so as not to draw in the army of zombies prowling the streets.
One thing to note: I haven’t read The Gathering Dead. I say that for two reasons: first to point out that I came into this book with no preconceived notions about the world, plot, or characters. If something or someone changed inorganically from the original, I wouldn’t be able to pick it out. Of course, this book is quite well reviewed, so I would assume that is not an issue for fans of the original.
The other reason I mention it is because I really enjoyed this book, even without the greater context offered by The Gathering Dead. Left with the Dead is very much a self-contained story, despite using characters and situations from an earlier narrative. That must have been tough to pull of, but author Stephen Knight does it with aplomb.
Grade: 
Why, thank you for the good review! LWTD doesn’t get much lovin’ these days.
That’s a shame, Stephen. It was a great read. I just plowed right through it, even having not had the context from Gathering. I’m kind of digging the short-form zombie story lately.
Well, I’m glad you liked it. Short z-world stuff doesn’t seem to be very popular–from a financial perspective, I can tell you the novels are where it’s at. And LWTD was designed to be self-sufficient, outside the rest of the “Gathering Dead” books, but by itself, it hasn’t been wildly successful even though I personally think it’s the tightest of the four stories.
But then and again, I like my SOF vs. Vampires book, City of the Damned. If I can find three other folks who agree with me, then I’ll finally have four for a game of bridge.
That’s really interesting. I wonder if people just assume a shorter book won’t be worth it? Their loss; this was a damn good read.
Right there with Dave. I am now a huge fan of the novella. I will always be into full length but I no longer thing it holds any more value over a novella. And I think LWD changed my mind on that.
I just emailed this link to my boyfriend. His son is autistic and when we discuss survival he usually hits a wall since T-man has a difficult time with any type of change. Being forced to move right away would be tough for them and staying quiet would be impossible.
Think of the dad with alzheimer’s in 30 Days of Night.
We are so reading this together.
Trying to survive TEOTWAWKI with a special needs child makes everything 1,000% more difficult. I mean, just look at the current high-water mark of zombie apocalypse fiction, “The Walking Dead.” Rick and Laurie can never keep their eyes on Carl, and he’s supposedly a NORMAL kid. Imagine the same with a non-verbal child who will stim over anything? That would suck. Badly.
hahahaha! “Where’s Carl?”
That’s exactly his fear; keeping T quiet and making him move when he wants to stay put. Also, T likes to keep a major distance between himself and his dad when at stores. I can’t imagine getting him to stay with us as we make our break frrom location to location.
For someone who’s supposed to be the font of understanding and control, Rick sure as hell is an idiot. He can’t even keep tabs on his own son when the nation is apparently overrun by millions of zombies. For some reason, I have a lot of trouble forgiving that lapse of logic.
You and me both. I like a fallible hero, but only to an extent. I’ve never gotten why Rick became the leader of the group. He’s never had that moment to define himself as such to me.
There is no reason for it. The guy even got shot doing the job he’s supposed to be super-good at. For all his deficiencies and lack of morals, Shane was a much better leader, and he was able to do what had to be done without reservation. Rick reminds me of Captain Picard–always agonizing over the “right” decision, when the ONLY decision is staring him in the face.
He’s a pastiche of every other hero we’ve seen before, just not interesting or evocative. Same for Laurie, she’s a tool frantically in search of a shed.
Now if Gartrell were in the group… 😉
Well said, Stephen. Hell, the most qualified person in the group now is, easily, Daryl. Not only does he have the knowledge and ability, he’s proven that he can think quickly on his feet and make reasoned, rational decisions. Rick can’t claim any of those things.
Lori, to me, seems like nothing more a walking, talking obstacle to make things more difficult for other characters. What personality she has is so fluid that it’s not worth keeping track of.
That’s right, Daryl should be the leader…but he can’t be, because he’s a white sheet-wearing hick. Even at the end of the world, PC still has a role to play. There’s a great deal of “convenience” in the series that I have to struggle to overlook to enjoy it. As it stands now, I no longer respect the show because the creators just aren’t being ballsy enough. Hell, I could survive in that world with an AirSoft gun and a Snickers bar.
Fight hunger, and zombies.. With a snickers.
If the show had taken the chance of making Daryl the leader of the group, they would’ve done something that could of completely changed the face of leadership around. People never see the practical survivalist types as leaders, and generally want to push us into the categories of loners and independents that over all just hate people.
As well, yeah it doesn’t help that his back ground is rather back woodsy, but it’s a show of character alone that he isn’t a bigot like his brother, and he is intelligent enough to follow his own mind.
So overall he is.
Quick, intelligent, practical, has the abilities/know how, rational sense of mind, and over all a bad ass. But saddly he’s from the back woods south, and we ain’t no no better down here none, nope!
I do hate that the marginalize the character by association. He brother was a bigot, so we naturally assume Daryl is too. They let his actions undo a lot of this, but then they pop him on his motorcycle with a prominent SS symbol on it to remind us all that, while the guy is smart and resourceful, he’s also a bigot.
But it’s so dammed obvious that he isn’t a bigot though.. Soooo obvious… You can tell T-Dog thought he was for quiet some time there… That was quickly proven wrong as Daryl pretty much saved T-dog’s life.
I thought the special needs situation was done very well.
Why, thank you! Curiously, there hasn’t been any negative feedback regarding that particular element.
God I love this book. White knuckle reading.